depression | Fred – a store..

Opening up Facebook today, it was serendipity that I was faced with an article in my feed from The Muse.com called 12 Ways to Instantly Boost Your Creativity.

After 10 years at my last job, I have been unemployed for 11 months now, and I am as shocked as anyone that it has been this long and I still haven’t secured a “day job” as an admin assistant. I have sent out plenty of applications and have even had a slew of interviews, but nothing has panned out for me yet.

I have been blessed with plenty of folks who are rooting for me and who have been very supportive during this difficult time, and that has helped enormously. But every so often I get discouraged by how long this is taking, and I worry what will become of the life my husband and I have been trying to build. Today is one of those days.

I have also maintained a home-based jewellery design business as a sideline for the past 18 years since I had to close my brick and mortar shop, Fred- a store, and I have kept busy in between sending out job applications by ramping up my jewellery business, creating this website and blog, as well as creating a social media profile for the business. The thing is, feeling down does not inspire creativity when it comes to making jewellery. Who knew?

I have a mobile sale scheduled for Friday and although I do have a large hockey bag full of jewellery creations ready to go, I did get a special request from my pharmacist.

have jewellery, will travel!

She told me she bought a new pair of red pants and would like something bright red (with gold findings) to accent them. It could be a necklace, earrings or a bracelet – she’s open.

While I do have a few pieces made already that might fit the bill, I do like to come up with a few options for people to choose from when I do custom work. I did try to make a few red things yesterday, but I wasn’t feeling the love and just made a slew of silver clip-on and lever-back earrings instead. Procrastination rears its ugly head!

I got as far as taking out the containers of red beads and staring into them, waiting for inspiration to strike. Oh well.

Then I looked at the infographic on 12 Ways to Instantly Boost Your Creativity. Have a look: https://www.themuse.com/advice/12-ways-to-instantly-boost-your-creativity

In the past 24 hours I have done five of the suggested twelve creativity-boosters:

Go on a walk– I walked to the bus stop. And back.That counts, right?
Take the bus– Took the bus to the other side of town to run an errand. And back.
Listen to music– I have music playing in the background all day as I work. The radio is on now, in fact.
Do your thing– Since no one has hired me yet to do their thing, I fill in the days doing my thing – a.k.a. Fred – a store things.
Try a new ice cream flavour– I was most excited about trying this idea since ice cream is always appropriate, but then I remembered – I already tried a new flavour last night! Häagen-Dazs was on special at the grocery store on the weekend and my husband and I decided to get some. But since the selection was VERY picked-over, I ended up trying something new – Limoncello Gelato. And it was delicious!

hey – apparently there was vodka in here! No wonder it was good!

So, I have started down the road toward ‘instantly’ boosting my creativity – aaaand it’s time to start making dinner before my husband gets home. Do you think the creative sparks will hold on until tomorrow? Stay tuned and we’ll see what new red creations emerge from my bead containers!